Fox News creates a false controversy against Obama, for inviting rapper “Common” to a White House poetry event. How could Obama do such a thing? I’m sure that no controversial musician has ever been invited to the White House before!
But as usual, we have to hand it to Jon Stewart for showing what complete hypocrites work for Fox News:
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Sarah Palin was so successful as a governor, she graduated early “Bitter Quitter”, she real is a “Dan Quayle” in heels. She clearly loves “dishing it out” but real can’t take it because she loves playing the victim card. Poor thing she fail as a VP candidate (her lie that her daughter was engaged was such a farce), her stand-up comic fiasco on the Jay Leno Show, please, her TV show canceled after declining rating, I guess running for Prez is the only thing she can look forward to, but since she is a coward she will only throw small minded rocks, poor thing. Since we already had an idiot “W” that caused our current economic debacle, America knows not to trust in fools who think they are brilliant. One of the reason for “W” failure was his drinking, Palin just has bad genes.
Great clip! I still don’t understand how anybody could take Fox seriously. The complete lack of any kind of honesty or moral character really gives Conservatives a bad name.
Do you think the gang at Fox ever watches Jon?
If so, they must know he’s just going to call them on the lies? ((& wouldn’t you love to be a fly on that wall))
Apparently, they are very confident that their “constituents” don’t tune in to The Daily Show or Colbert Report…. or anything other than Fox.
They do vote though & that’s they scary part.
I especially enjoyed Jon’s comments Thursday night where he coined the terms “Foxygen” for what they have to be breathing at Fox to make up their stories 🙂
I don’t mind a network having a perspective, and while I prefer my news as impartial as possible, I understand the marketing demands and profit motives that lead Fox and MSNBC (and Limbaugh and Beck, and . . .) to cater to their respective audiences.
What makes me angry about Fox is that when they make something up that’s complete fiction and flat-out lies, and then the facts are published and the story is PROVEN to be a lie, they keep pushing it even harder. That crosses the line from perspective to propaganda, and I think any program that knowingly distributes false information and refuses to retract it when proven wrong should lose their broadcasting license. Maybe that’s a law that can be introduced in Congress, cloaked as an opportunity for Republicans to hamper the “liberal media”.
Of course most of us know that the “liberal media” is as much a fantasy as anything else Fox has to say, while there are some news programs that I believe display clear bias, the majority are trying to be as impartial and non-partisan as they can. After all, good reporting is about showing both sides and getting at the facts.
Jason, I agree with what you seem to be trying to say, but I’m a little concerned about you conflating “good reporting” with being impartial. I don’t think it is possible to be impartial, and trying to be impartial leads to false equivalencies (for example, read https://www.politicalirony.com/2011/05/13/obi-wan-kenobi-is-dead/ as the media “showing both sides”).
The more important issue here is lying and propaganda. As you point out, Fox News crosses that line by deliberately repeating things they know to be false. By confusing lying with bias, you muddy the water. We should not punish bias, but we should punish lying and propaganda. Unfortunately, Fox News was able to defend their right to lie in court.
@Laurie
Here’s a story about Fox actually using the Daily Show to fact check itself. You can see how sincere Hannity is in his apology for using the wrong picture.
http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/media/content/daily-show-discovers-fox-news-manipulated-footage-while-fox-news-fact-checks-sarah-palin
Doh! The youtube video of Hannity correcting his mistake isn’t up anymore. The Stewart clip is still pretty good though.
IK – it may not be possible to be impartial, but good news reporting is getting at the facts and the story around them. Choosing which facts you use while ignoring the inconvenient ones is not good reporting. Making up a story by twisting the facts completely out of shape isn’t good reporting.
Being impartial, non-partisan and fact based doesn’t mean giving equal time to extreme opinions, nor does it mean trying to be “politically correct” at the expense of the truth. But I do think news reporting should be first and foremost about the facts, and the reporter’s job is not to advance a specific agenda it’s to give the audience a clear picture of what has happened.
At one point in time, claiming the Earth revolved around the Sun would have been considered an extreme opinion.
Facts are relative, depend on the observer, and change. There is no such thing as objective truth (“truth is in the eye of the beholder”). A reporter will always advance a specific agenda. It is impossible not to. You cannot tell a story without picking which facts to report, and there are always inconvenient facts that get left out.
Can’t we just agree that the problem here is news organizations purposely presenting things as facts that have been repeatedly debunked? I think it is clear that Fox News deliberately says things that even they do not believe, in order to advance a political agenda or to make money.
I think we can all agree that however you define good news reporting, Faux News ain’t it. And I understand your point, IK. It may not be possible to report the news without introducing the reporter’s bias, but a good reporter will try to put more emphasis on the truth as they understand it than on advancing some personal agenda.
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